


Articuno's Queen

by CaptainNightGale



Category: Frozen (2013), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: (it's the parents it's always the parents we know that), (mostly I wanted to try my hand at rewriting something someone else had written), Elsa may be a part time harpy, F/M, Hans gets what's coming to him, I'm not labelling all the pokemon involved, It needed to make more sense, Minor Character Death, a rewrite, can you tell I have no idea what to write here, pokemon evolution as a metaphor for character growth, the romance is so low key it might as well not be there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 12:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainNightGale/pseuds/CaptainNightGale
Summary: Have you seen Frozen? It's basically that, but with pokemon. And some more sense and maybe a little more believable character development.





	1. In Which Children are Threatened, A Legendary Protects Them, and Elsa Gains Her Powers

**Author's Note:**

> Anna is five, Elsa is eight

Anna wandered about the temple and _sighed_. The adults were being _boring_ and talking in lowered voices around a table, which clearly had _something_ interesting on it - why would they be so intent on it _otherwise_ \- but she wasn’t allowed to see. The temple was big and empty and boring. There was nothing to do. And it wasn’t well heated, so they hadn’t been able to take off their coats and hats and gloves and scarves, but she was still cold and with nothing to show for it.  
Anna sighed again – for emphasis – and thumped back to lean against part of the wall. It juddered, and a lock beside her rattled.  
Not part of the wall, a _door_.  
She glanced back at the adults – all too busy with their important _boringness_ – and tugged at Rex’s ear to get the luxray up beside her. Then she pulled the door open and stepped out into the _snow_.  
She’d seen snow before, _obviously_. It was the best time of the year, when everything was white and sparkling and _fun_.  
But Snowpoint was _made_ of snow. It hadn’t stopped snowing since their boat came into the harbour.  
Maybe she would go back down to the harbour. They’d had to leave the party earlier, but mother had promised she could go back to it, but their talks were taking _forever_ and she was bored and besides, Rex was with her so she’d be safe, so they could find her at the party later.  
Anna grinned and lifted her head up to get a face full of snow, and giggled.  
Rex growled and stretched himself and yawned.  
“Anna?” Elsa caught the door in her gloved hand and peered around it. “What are you doing?”  
“Elsa! Come with me!” Anna grabbed at her sister and pulled her into the snow.  
Elsa yelped and stumbled forward, and the door shut with a snow-muffled thump behind her. “We shouldn’t-”  
“We have Rex,” Anna said, cutting her off as she set off along the path, wading through the snow. She looked back at Elsa, smiling. “Come on! I wanna _see_.”  
Elsa, laughing, gave in to her younger sister and followed her along the path. Rex followed them, shaking his head to dislodge the snow from his mane every so often.  
“Where are we going?”  
“Lake,” Anna answered, changing her mind. The lake would be fun and quiet and _empty_ of people. It could be their place, where no one would be bowing to them or getting in their way.  
Elsa glanced about them, into the dark spaces between the trees, and beckoned for Rex to walk closer.  
“D’you think the lake’ll be frozen? So we can walk on it?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“I hope so.” Anna nodded. “That’s always fun.”  
The path to the lake was well signposted and well kept, so despite the constantly falling snow, it didn’t take the two girls long to get there.  
The trees stopped a stretch back from the lake, most of the way around, enough for a path. To the south end, the path widened out into a clearing where the snow was mostly undisturbed. The lake itself was _big_ , so big that the other side of it was lost in the snow and behind the bulk of the island that loomed in the darkness.  
Anna fixed on the open ground and drew in an excited breath, coughing out half melted flakes of snow. Then she dropped Elsa’s hand and ran out across it, kicking it up. “Come on!” She spun about to face Elsa, waving her hands at her.  
Elsa hesitated, gazing at the dark island that loomed from the centre of the lake. Something about it seemed… off. Like there was more to it than just what she could see, and maybe something was-  
Loosely packed snow hit her in the face and Elsa blinked, spluttering as she caught some in her mouth.  
Anna laughed, clapping her hands. “Come on!”  
Elsa glanced at Rex, who groaned and rolled over into the snow, clearly at ease on the lake front. So, grinning, she crouched to pile up snow of her own to throw back at Anna.  
They raced back and forth, churning up the snow and throwing it out across the lake and each other. As it hit the lake, some of it scattered across small ice floes that bobbed gently on the surface.  
Anna saw them and started to walk towards the lake.  
Elsa laughed and caught her, toppling Anna into the snow.  
“Els _a_!” Anna shrieked, laughing as she pulled up, snow caking her loose hair and melting down her face and into the collar of her coat. “I wanna go walk on the ice!”  
“No you don’t,” Elsa said, laughing as she crawled up to stare into Anna’s face. “We’re going to-”  
“Build a snowman!” Anna yelled, pushing Elsa away from her. “Can we, can we?”  
Elsa coughed, lying on her back in the snow. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”  
Anna clapped her hands and set to the task of rolling up a ball of snow.  
The falling snow thickened as Elsa sat up. Now, when she looked, she couldn’t see the island in the centre of the lake.  
“Anna?”  
“Come _on_! You need to help build this snowman.”  
Rex was growling, and Elsa turned to see him shaking free of the snow and prowling towards them.  
“Anna.” Elsa got to her feet and stepped back, reaching for her sister. She could hear _chains_ , echoing clearly despite the thickly falling snow. “Something’s wrong, we should-”  
Anna wasn’t listening, was busy on her task of building the snowman’s body.  
The chains echoed around them, and Rex growled louder in warning.  
Anna looked around for Elsa, to see where _her_ part of the snowman was – and finally realised that something wasn’t quite right. She grabbed at Elsa’s hand, and Elsa moved instinctively to stand before her sister, protecting her.  
Rex moved in front of them both as, out of the thickening snow, the dark silhouette of a strange and awful beast grew large and close.  
Rex roared, his mane crackling with electricity.  
“Elsa…” Anna clung to Elsa’s arm. “That’s – what are they?”  
Elsa looked around to see small, dark creatures in the snow, circling them and creeping closer. “Stay away!” She threw an ineffectual handful of snow at them.  
One of them was bigger, had a flared red crest of what seemed like feathers, and it hissed at the two girls. On cue, the sneasel hissed at them as well and crept closer.  
Rex snarled and lashed his tail, and sent an electric pulse out that dissuaded the pack – they fell back, still surrounding them – but not the looming creature that stepped around the side of the lake and towered over them, wreathed in a dark cloak and the thick swirling snow.  
It leant forward and the clinking of chains increased as it drew one arm back, as if gearing up to swipe at the two girls, even across the distance that still separated them.  
An almighty screech had it pulling back, and Rex pressed back against Elsa and Anna as a great blue bird landed in the snow before them, wings spread.  
The snow halted where it hung in the air, and shot outwards like daggers against the sneasel and the beast that menaced the sisters.  
Anna let out a soft cry and buckled against Elsa, and Elsa turned to catch her.  
“Anna!” Elsa caught at her sister and found her _cold_ , ice cold, and almost blue about her edges.  
The sneasel have gone; so too has the beast, back into the snowy forest.  
The giant bird turned to stare down at the two sisters.  
Rex relaxed his stance and then turned to dash into the forest, towards the temple.  
Elsa sank to her knees in the snow, holding Anna tight to her. She looked up at the bird, eyes wide and lip trembling. “ _Please_.”  
The bird brought in its wings and lowered its head, tilting to inspect Elsa.  
Elsa caught her breath, almost forgot to _breathe_.  
The bird gently rested its beak across the top of Elsa’s head, her white-blonde hair tangled wet and damp with the melted snow. Her hat had disappeared with the wind.  
“Elsa! Anna!”  
Elsa blinked up at the bird as her breathing settled, as the snow started to fall in light flurries again.  
It pulled back, almost to the edge of the lake. Then it stepped again, onto the frozen shores – and took off into the sky, and was quickly lost to sight.  
Elsa stared after it, and her arms went slack around Anna.  
“Anna! Elsa!”  
As the yells got louder, Elsa snapped back to herself and shook her head. “Over here!” She called, and pulled Anna back up onto her lap. “Wake up!” She shook her sister, who groaned and shivered but didn’t open her eyes.  
A search party found them, and the sisters were bundled separately into warmth and back to the temple where their parents waited with the elder of this harsh, cold place.

Elsa shivered as she huddled into the alcove of the temple. It was large and stern and empty of anything that might provide comfort.  
Rex sat beside her, tense and alert as he watched the King, who stood by his wife and watched the elder tend to Anna.  
Elsa drew the cloak someone had wrapped about her closer and squeezed her eyes shut. Flashes of blue feathers, of a rusting chain trimmed in ice, played across her vivid imagination, and Elsa flung herself to her feet and ran towards her parent, towards her sister.  
“Elsa.” The King wrapped an arm about her and pulled her to his side.  
“Is Anna-?” She looked between them both, and then across at the Elder.  
Anna lay between them on a stone table, with a chimchar from one of the royal guards sitting beside her. She looked like a corpse, or an offering.  
“She will be alright,” the Elder said, stepping around the altar and crouching before Elsa. “Could you tell us what happened?”  
“We – we were playing, and she wanted to build a snowman, but then there was – there were the… a pack of – of _monsters_ , small dark ones, with hooked claws and feather crests, and they surrounded us and Rex tried to fight them off,” Elsa started speaking and then just couldn’t stop, the words tumbling out over each other as she tried to explain what she’d seen, “But then there was a – a big monster, one as tall as the trees, and it was going to eat us but then there was a big blue bird and it – it saved us, and touched me and… and… then you found us?” She looked up.  
The Elder was studying her intently.  
“Did I do wrong? I know we shouldn’t have left, but we had Rex and I didn’t want to leave Anna alone.”  
“You are both safe,” the Elder said. “May I see your hands?” She extended her own.  
Elsa fumbled off her gloves and placed her hands in the Elder’s.  
“What dwells in the woods around here?” asked the King. “What was the monster that she saw?”  
“The _Kammerpals_ ,” the Elder said, turning Elsa’s hands over in her own, as if looking for something. “You were lucky that the Ice Queen took an interest in saving you.” She pushed up Elsa’s sleeve, but with all the layers, it didn’t go very far. There was nothing to see but pale skin.  
“The – Ice Queen?” the Queen asked, reaching out to hold one of Anna’s hands as they waited for her to wake up.  
“She who protects our town when the Sky Lord cannot,” the Elder replied, letting go of Elsa. “Articuno.”  
Ice sparked in the air above Elsa’s palms, and she started and pulled her hands back into her chest.  
The Elder hesitated, frowning at the ice as it dropped to the floor and melted. “You _have_ been blessed,” she murmured.  
Elsa shook her head. “I don’t-”  
Anna stirred and groaned. “Elsa?”  
“I’m here!” Elsa turned to her sister and reached out.  
Before she could touch her, their mother swept Anna into a hug, away from Elsa.  
Elsa bit her lip.  
Their father rested a hand on her shoulder. “What does that mean? That she’s been _blessed_?”  
The Elder got to her feet. “Your daughter may have been blessed by the Ice Queen. She may require some teaching-”  
“We had best return home,” the Queen cut in. “If Anna is to be well again, then we must take her somewhere warmer, where our healers can tend to her.”  
The King hesitated, then nodded. “Elder Ailbhe, I hope this will not impede our talks if we are to leave now.”  
“Of course not. Our shore is open to your ship, and when the summer comes, the passes will be open across the mountains. We can talk again then.” The Elder nodded.  
“What’s happening?” Anna asked, voice muzzy with confused sleep.  
“We’re going home,” their mother said, already walking away down the temple with her. “Is that alright?”  
Anna yawned. “Ye-yeah. I want to go home.”  
The King laid a hand on Elsa’s shoulder. “Thank you for finding our daughters.”  
The Elder dipped her head. “If anything – _further_ – happens with Princess Elsa, let me know. I would like to help in any way I can.”  
The King nodded and led Elsa down the length of the temple, after the Queen. Rex followed them.  
As they reached the door of the temple, Elsa glanced back to see the Elder standing under the window, and the window lit up with the image of the green sky dragon that was worked in its glass – and beyond that, the shadow of a great bird that wasn’t in the glass but beyond it.

Although the sun has long set – the days were short, this far north, this far into the end of the year – the harbour was busy still with the market, and workers who strode from dock to ship to warehouse to stalls.  
The royal guard cleared a path to their landing boat, but just before they reached the pier, a small stantler foal raced between two of the guards and startled at finding its path onwards blocked, rearing and kicking snow up at them.  
The Queen pulled back with a gasp, and the nearest guard reacted by drawing his sword.  
“No – don’t!” A young boy flung himself to the stantler’s side, grabbing at its broken halter. “I’m sorry, he got away from me, he didn’t mean anything-”  
The guard pulled him and the stantler to the side with the help of the infernape standing beside him, and they were tossed back into the snow on the darker side of the harbour, the direction they had been running in.  
Elsa chanced a quick look at them as she passed, and met the boy’s eyes. Not hot and angry so much as relieved and – recognition? She didn’t know him.  
“You’re the – I saw you, at the-”  
How could he think-  
She lowered her gaze and hurried onto the ship after her parents, rubbing at her hands as they began to itch. She'd never put her gloves back on, where were they? Maybe her hands were just cold.  
Her mother took Anna straight into the state cabin, closing the door behind them.  
Elsa lingered on the deck, and stood up at the railing to watch the town and the market and the brief hint of performers in the thick of it.  
That boy was standing with his stantler, at the edge of their pier. He was staring at _her_ , and as he saw her staring at him, he raised his hands to cup his mouth, as if to yell something.  
Elsa dropped below the railing and turned to lean against it. She studied her itching hands and placed them against the planking beside her. The wood was instantly patterned with ice that laced in delicate snowflake shapes, and the itching in her hands lessened.  
The boy’s voice – if he _had_ yelled anything – was lost in the snow and wind.  
She pulled her hands away, folding them into her chest.  
“Your gloves, Elsa.” Her father held them out to her.  
She pulled them on. “Will that keep it away?”  
“Perhaps. They might help.” He knelt to her level, helping fasten the gloves about her wrists. “Conceal it,” he said, as the boat was towed out of its dock by the harbour mantine, “Don’t feel it.”  
Elsa flexed her fingers in her gloves and pressed her hands to the railing, beside the patterned ice that was already there. Nothing appeared. She looked up at her father and smiled.  
“You see?” He smiled, stroking back her hair. “You can control it.”  
“Conceal it,” Elsa repeated, “Don’t feel it.”


	2. In Which The Children Attempt To Build A Snowman, And Elsa Makes A Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna is eight, Elsa is eleven. A little bit of expansion because _someone_ has to attempt to make these things make sense

Elsa crouched beside the fire and held her hands out to the warmth, palms up. They weren’t _cold_ , exactly, but they itched and that meant – she bit her lip and _focused_ , and ice sparked about her palms.  
“Elsa!” Anna burst into their shared room, hanging off the door handle as she grinned from ear to ear. “Come and – what’s that?”  
Elsa dusted the ice away from her hands, stepping away from the fireplace. “Play what?”  
Anna was staring at her hands.  
Elsa folded them into each other, clasping her hands about each other. “Anna? What do you want to play?” she prompted. When Anna didn't look up straight away, Elsa folded her arms and hugged her hands into her armpits. There wasn't any ice left. She couldn't feel it. And her palms had stopped itching so much, so she was safe. For the moment.  
Anna shook herself and refocused. “Snow! It’s been snowing!” She ran to the window and leant up to press her nose against it.  
Elsa turned around to look as well. It _was_ , earlier even than last year. And the years before. It was thick and still falling, in lazy spirals.  
“Let’s build a snowman!”  
Elsa smiled. Winter was fast becoming _her_ favourite season, too; much easier to hide what had happened to her when there was snow and ice everywhere anyway. Her hands were still itchy – she pulled her gloves from on top of the mantelpiece and pulled them on – but if she could get outside, the ice that they called would be lost in what was already there. “Are you properly dressed for the cold?”  
Anna pouted but grabbed at her hat and scarf, which were lying at the end of her bed. “Now can we go?” She pulled them roughly on, lopsided and covering one eye. It wasn't neat and as befitting their rank, but – she would be warm. They were children.  
These weren't things that Elsa _really_ needed to worry about just yet.  
Elsa nodded and took her own winter gear from the stand by the door, and followed Anna as she bounced down the corridor.  
They passed Rex, who was lying at the bottom of the grand staircase; the luxray cracked open a lazy eye and watched them, then grunted and relaxed again. Their parents were somewhere in the castle, working. Elsa hesitated, because maybe they should tell them they were going outside, but-  
Anna barrelled out a side door and into the private gardens by a corridor normally reserved for the servants. She laughed with delight and spun, before landing with a thump in the fresh snow.  
Elsa followed more cautiously, but couldn't help relaxing as she stepped into the fresh snow. There was just something about it that made everything... better. She watched Anna, then grinned and half waded through the snow – it was thick on the ground already, and still falling – past her sister to where it was still unmarked. There she knelt and thrust her gloved hands into the snow, feeling it soak through her gloves. The slight itching in her hands faded even more, until she could barely feel it.  
Anna giggled and rolled onto her front, then jumped back to her feet. "Let's make the _biggest_ snowman! As big as the castle! As big as the one in Snowpoint!"  
Elsa blinked at her. "The – the one in Snowpoint?" They hadn't actually _made_ one in Snowpoint.  
"Yeah." Anna blinked at her. "It was _massive_. By the lake? It didn't take that long to make so big, but I guess it was snowing at the same time." She grinned, blinking away snow from her eyes. "It's still snowing _now_."  
Elsa didn't correct her as she got back to her feet. "Come on, then. You make the head, I'll make the body."  
"We'll _both_ make the body," Anna corrected. "And _then_ the head. It's got to be _big_."  
Elsa nodded slowly, content to follow her younger sister's plan. She worked steadily at building her ball of snow, while Anna rushed and couldn’t get hers to stick together.  
“You’re _magic_ ,” Anna breathed, eyes wide.  
Elsa felt the tingling in her hands and smiled uneasily. “It’s just patience,” she said. “You move too fast.” She kept her hands on the snow, and felt it harden under her hands.  
"No, no – show me!" Anna left her snow where it fell and ran to Elsa.  
She tripped and landed flat across the ball of snow in front of Elsa. It didn't break apart, only rolled slightly to tip her further onto her stomach, almost off her feet.  
Anna's head smacked into the snow and she went still.  
"Anna-" Elsa reached out to pull her sister back.  
Was she breathing? Was she awake, was she – was she _dead_ had Elsa killed her was this what the elder had warned-  
Elsa pulled her hands out of the snow – they'd stopped tingling, but her sister _lay there_ – and backed away, holding them trembling before her. What did she – what could she – "Help!" she yelled, turning her head back towards the palace, unwilling to take her eyes fully off her sister ( _'s dead body, she'd killed her Anna was dead she should have stayed in Snowpoint_ -) "Someone help us!"  
Anna coughed and sputtered and slid down the snow to her feet, lifting her face free. She was laughing, flushing pink with the cold. Snow was tangled in her hair and trickling down beneath the collar of her scarf and coat.  
Elsa let out an ill-disguised sigh, and the ball of snow behind Anna collapsed into a slush heap.  
Anna slipped backwards and fell, landing with a splash and a shriek.  
Elsa started forward and was overtaken by Rex, who leapt to drag Anna free of the pooling slush. It wasn't deep, but it had already started to seep through her clothes and cling to her skin.  
Anna shivered and laughed and pushed Rex away as she stood up.  
"Let's go back inside?" Elsa suggested, holding a hand out to her.  
"We haven't finished our snowman." Anna shook her head. "We've got to do that."  
"No – Anna, you're shivering and wet, you need to go-"  
Anna grabbed Elsa's gesturing hand and pulled her around the slush pile and onwards. "We've got to find better snow."  
" _Anna_!" Elsa felt the tingling surge in her hands and she pulled back against her younger sister. "We're going in."  
Rex nudged at Anna, trying to coax her back inside.  
"I-" Anna looked up at Elsa, biting her lip. "Can we come back and build the snowman?" she asked, hesitant now. She let go of Elsa's hand and clasped at her elbows, hugging into herself.  
“If-” Elsa already felt bad for snapping, but it was - it was for the best. “Maybe. If you get properly warmed up.”  
Gerda hurried out of the palace - _finally_ , it felt like _hours_ since Elsa had yelled - and took in the sight at once. “Now come on, Princess, we’d best get you inside and out of those wet things.” She pulled Anna to her side and inside in a wide berth around Elsa.  
Elsa sighed and slumped. Maybe she deserved that. It was - if only Anna had _listened_ to her. If only she’d tried harder to get Anna back inside, before all this happened.  
Rex grunted and nudged his head into her shoulder.  
Elsa flinched away from him, curling her hands into her chest and into a position where she couldn’t easily touch him. Even through the gloves…  
“Conceal it,” she murmured, following slowly after Gerda and Anna. “Don’t feel it.” She rubbed her hands together, feeling the itching only getting worse.  
Ice sparked around her and she pulled back from it, eyes wide. “Oh _no_ ,” she whispered. How could she - she was going to keep losing control because she couldn’t hide it beneath layers of gloves, and more people were going to get hurt because of her, and Anna-  
“Elsa?”  
She turned around to see their mother.  
“Anna is going to be fine. She just got a little - oh, Elsa…” She crouched down to Elsa’s level, holding her hands out to take Elsa’s.  
Elsa pulled back, shaking her head. “I can’t - it’s not safe.” She looked away. “I - I want to change rooms.” She _had_ to. What if it seeped out while she was asleep and froze everything, froze Anna? She would never mean to, but… “It would be safer.”  
“You don’t… _have_ to go to such extremes,” her mother said carefully. “Your control is getting better, is it not?”  
Elsa bit her lip. “No,” she said eventually. “I have to keep her safe, you don’t understand.” She looked up, past her mother to where her father was striding towards them. “I have to change rooms. We should have done that when we - when we came back.” When they’d thought this was _nothing_ , just a - a temporary thing.  
But she was cursed with it, and she wouldn’t bring it against anyone else, however accidental it might be.

When Anna was allowed out of the sweltering cocoon of blankets the worried staff (and her mother) had piled her into, she went running through the halls, yanking open every door to peer into the corners of every room. She was looking for Elsa, but she wasn’t to be found.  
She wasn’t waiting by the door - Anna was herded away from it in any case, barred from going outside after her “latest episode”, whatever that meant. Anna pouted and pleaded, but for once the staff were immune.  
So she was looking for Elsa, because if they couldn’t build snowmen outside, then they could do _something_ inside.  
But Elsa wasn’t _anywhere_. Not the library, where she spent a lot of her free time. Not in the lounge, where their mother was relaxing. Not in the throne room, still being tidied after the morning of hearing the public. Not in the kitchen, busy with preparing the food for the night’s meal.  
Not _anywhere_.  
Anna sighed and turned to slump back against the wall, resting her head to stare up at the painting of opposite her. It was big, mostly snow. Yellow eyes glared out of a dark blue, half-blurred form within it.  
Pretty, but pointless when it couldn’t tell her where Elsa was. Unless she was busy being worried about Anna in their room…!  
Anna launched herself off the wall, almost hit the other side of the corridor in her haste, and ran off up the stairs. “Elsa!”  
Their father was just leaving their room, a small bundle in his hands. A door further down the corridor, on the opposite side, pushed shut as Anna appeared.  
She wriggled past their father into their room and found it _empty_. Or - not _empty_ -empty, but all of Elsa’s belongings were missing. The dresser, her small-but-growing pile of books, the shelves she’d kept them on. Her bed was still there, but stripped of all the linen.  
It seemed so much _bigger_ with everything like that, and though it was cheerily lit with candles and a fire in the grate, Anna shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.  
“Where’s all Elsa’s stuff?” she asked, not turning around. She scanned the room, as if trying to find the answer there.  
“She… decided that she needed more space.”  
“She could’ve _asked_! I would have moved some things!” Anna’s toys were all over the floor, but - but they shared them! Obviously they could push them to the side if Elsa needed the room for - whatever.  
“She-” their father sighed, and knelt down to Anna’s level as Anna stood, alone, in the centre of her too-large room. “She’s growing up, Anna,” he said gently. “She’s the crown princess, she needs… she needs to be able to focus.”  
“And I was distracting her,” Anna murmured, trying to hold back the tears. “I’m just-”  
Her father swept her up in a hug as the tears flooded through. “No, Anna, it’s not like that, you’d never-”  
“Then why’d she leave? She didn’t say goodbye, or - or anything!”  
“She hasn’t left the palace, this isn’t-”  
“But she’s left _me_! She’s not said goodbye and she didn’t say anything and I - I _want her back why won’t she come back I don’t understand_!”  
Her father couldn’t answer and didn’t answer. He just held her and did what he could to comfort her.

Elsa found her later that night, loosely tangled in a thin blanket that must have been pulled all over the palace in search of her.  
Anna was sleeping soundly against the wall opposite the door that had so recently been hers and Elsa’s; not far off the room that Elsa had chosen for herself.  
Elsa sighed, taking in the creases between Anna’s eyebrows, the reddening about her closed eyes. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, crouching down to her level. “Come on.”  
Anna half-woke and focused on Elsa. “Elsa…? Where’d you…”  
“Come to bed, Anna.” She pulled her to her feet and half carried Anna through into their - their _old_ room. Anna’s room.  
“Why’d you leave, Elsa?” Anna mumbled. “Why couldn’t I find you?”  
“I have to keep you safe,” Elsa replied, catching the door before it swung heavily shut. “I’m - I can’t… I’m not safe.”  
“I can keep m’self… safe.” Anna yawned, falling back against her bed. “Why’re you… leaving?”  
“I - I’m not _leaving_ , just-”  
“Oh. You’ll be back, then?” Anna smiled, sleepily.  
Elsa pulled the covers up around Anna and backed towards the door. “Good night, Anna.”  
“Good… g’night.” Anna snuggled down into her blankets.  
Elsa pulled the door closed and sighed, resting her head against the door. "Conceal it," she whispered, pulling at her gloves, making sure they weren't slipping. "Don't feel it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OR it'll be like a month and a half between chapters holy shit I got distracted. My bad ^^;  
> But we'll aim for once a month, I guess?
> 
> Soon we'll be done with all the time skips, honest.

**Author's Note:**

> What even are chapter titles?
> 
> The "kammerpals", as I've called it, is our rendition of the Krampus. Because my friend wanted to put it as a pseudo-legendary pokemon type thing in our main pokemon fanfic, and this... well, this is part of that canon because I cannot help myself.
> 
> hmu @captainnightgale on tumblr!


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